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I wanted to just affirm to me and others why I have D* versus C* (Comcast to the uninitiated). I am visiting some family in the Seattle area for the next 4 days and my brother in law has the same Panasonic Plasma I have in Portland. We were watching a show that I watch and I noticed more image distortion, artifacting and general quality issues versus what I see with D*. I know D* is not perfect either but I can see a noticable quality difference between the shows we watched over the last few days in HD from Comcast versus Directv. Also the standard definition quality looked very poor also. If I have my choice it would be D* (If I can have it where I live) or FIOS is I have no other option.

i agree. i also have comcrap in my area and its awful. not to mention more expensive. directv has one of the best pics out there among tv providers imo.only one that might be better is fios. i've always been pleased with D*'s pic quality especially over E* which is what i had before.

Directv member since 2008 HR34-700,HR24-500 & HR20-700-swm lnbSirius member since 2003Dish member from 1999-2008 vip 622 & vip 211

I switched from DirecTV to Comcast about a year and a half ago. When I switched, I noticed that the SD picture on my TV was significantly better with Comcast than DirecTV.

I couldn't compare HD pictures because I didn't have HD with DirecTV. But I think the HD picture with Comcast is excellent. I have a neighbor with DirecTV HD (though he has a different TV, so a direct comparison isn't possible), but neither he nor I notice a difference in picture quality between DirecTV at his house and Comcast at my house. (Though I think he has sound quality issues, because he had asked me if I had audio drop outs with Comcast; I told him no and pointed him to this site.)

If Comcast has noticible distortion in Seattle, maybe that is specific to the Seattle Comcast network, or maybe it has to do with the way your brother-in-law's TV is configured.

i agree. i also have comcrap in my area and its awful. not to mention more expensive. directv has one of the best pics out there among tv providers imo.only one that might be better is fios. i've always been pleased with D*'s pic quality especially over E* which is what i had before.

to clarify i meant HD pic quality. which is all i watch

Directv member since 2008 HR34-700,HR24-500 & HR20-700-swm lnbSirius member since 2003Dish member from 1999-2008 vip 622 & vip 211

Picture quality from cable providers will differ from provider to provider and even within different areas from the same provider. They have different channel lineups and compression schemes from one place to another.

I have DirecTV and the picture quality is excellent. I am still able though to view some of the unscrambled Comcast channels via my TV's tuner. For now HD network channels like ABC, CBS, NBC look better in my area from Comcast than DirecTV. My understanding is that is because in some areas there is much less compression done on those channels than the rest of their cable channels. The rest I hear are pretty seriously overcompressed. Hard for me to give Comcast any positive remarks, but in this case those channels look really good.

My neighbor & I have the same plasma tv in our dark media rooms, both calibrated by the same iSF guy, and he has FiOS & I have D*. FioS HD & SD is definitely better than mine, but just marginally on the HD, but leaps & bounds on SD. C'mon D* clean up your 480i, as we can't watch everything in HD, until you get AMC, DIY, BBC, G4, Fuse & E!.

Picture quality from cable providers will differ from provider to provider and even within different areas from the same provider. They have different channel lineups and compression schemes from one place to another.

HD PQ from providers ranked from best to worst:

Fios

DirecTV

Comcast, TWC, Brighthouse, etc.

U-Verse

Staring at a blank screen

Blindfolding yourself

Pouring some sort of harmful chemical in your eyes

Dish Network

Haha.. In reality, Dish is easily above Uverse and usually (but not always, as you correctly point out) above the cable companies in picture quality.

I wanted to just affirm to me and others why I have D* versus C* (Comcast to the uninitiated). I am visiting some family in the Seattle area for the next 4 days and my brother in law has the same Panasonic Plasma I have in Portland. We were watching a show that I watch and I noticed more image distortion, artifacting and general quality issues versus what I see with D*. I know D* is not perfect either but I can see a noticable quality difference between the shows we watched over the last few days in HD from Comcast versus Directv. Also the standard definition quality looked very poor also. If I have my choice it would be D* (If I can have it where I live) or FIOS is I have no other option.

My parents have TW and I notice a huge difference in PQ when I am at their home. They don't know any better until they visit and see how much D*'s HD PQ blows their TW cable away.

Just switched from Comcast to DTV a month and a half ago. No question in my mind the PQ, sound and just about everything on DTV blows away Comcast, period. And everyone in the family agrees. I can actually read the DTV guide! Will never go back... I'm glad I made the switch.

Actually with only minor exceptions, OTA should always be top of the list as far a PQ of network television....

Well...

Yes, OTA has the *potential* to use up to 19Mb/s for their MPEG2 feed, and so everyone makes the assumption that they do, but in reality, a station with no subchannels typically runs their feed at around 14Mb/s. With subchannels, that feed could be *much* less.

On the other hand, a TV provider like DirecTV or Comcast (or Verizon or AT&T, etc.) could be pulling in a feed over fiber before that final stage of compression, and so could be delivering a higher-quality feed than what goes out OTA. True, most OTA stations are actually picked up OTA, recompressed using MPEG4 (with very little additional loss in most cases), and sent out, but some feeds are fiber and are very high quality.

Comcast locally (Seattle) has gone to almost all digital. I think channels 2-29 are still simulcast analog/digital (but maybe not), all the rest are digital only.

As others have noted, cable pq varies from market to market and company to company. There is no "one size fits all" with regard to cable pq. I left Comcast and got DirecTV due to picture quality issues. At that time, DirecTV was significantly better. Can't say that is still true, as I don't have the opportunity to do a valid comparison.

My neighbor & I have the same plasma tv in our dark media rooms, both calibrated by the same iSF guy, and he has FiOS & I have D*. FioS HD & SD is definitely better than mine, but just marginally on the HD, but leaps & bounds on SD. C'mon D* clean up your 480i, as we can't watch everything in HD, until you get AMC, DIY, BBC, G4, Fuse & E!.

Texasmoose, I agree on the additional HD. But some of that still looks like crap on Comcast. I can wait a little while, I would rather have D* get a good contract instead of another price increase.

Yes, OTA has the *potential* to use up to 19Mb/s for their MPEG2 feed, and so everyone makes the assumption that they do, but in reality, a station with no subchannels typically runs their feed at around 14Mb/s. With subchannels, that feed could be *much* less.

On the other hand, a TV provider like DirecTV or Comcast (or Verizon or AT&T, etc.) could be pulling in a feed over fiber before that final stage of compression, and so could be delivering a higher-quality feed than what goes out OTA. True, most OTA stations are actually picked up OTA, recompressed using MPEG4 (with very little additional loss in most cases), and sent out, but some feeds are fiber and are very high quality.

Hence the minor exceptions clause......Personally I have yet to see a lil HD feed from D* that was better than that same station OTA.

Comcast locally (Seattle) has gone to almost all digital. I think channels 2-29 are still simulcast analog/digital (but maybe not), all the rest are digital only.

As others have noted, cable pq varies from market to market and company to company. There is no "one size fits all" with regard to cable pq. I left Comcast and got DirecTV due to picture quality issues. At that time, DirecTV was significantly better. Can't say that is still true, as I don't have the opportunity to do a valid comparison.

Carl, I am staying with family near Puyallup (all digital Comcast) and their HD still looks like crap!

I have DirecTV and the picture quality is excellent. I am still able though to view some of the unscrambled Comcast channels via my TV's tuner. For now HD network channels like ABC, CBS, NBC look better in my area from Comcast than DirecTV. My understanding is that is because in some areas there is much less compression done on those channels than the rest of their cable channels. The rest I hear are pretty seriously overcompressed. Hard for me to give Comcast any positive remarks, but in this case those channels look really good.

I agree with you general sentiments. In the area I am staying with relatives, they way over compress the digital and HD signals (it looks really bad) and artifacted. I appreciate the level of service I get versus Comcast in this area.

Hence the minor exceptions clause......Personally I have yet to see a lil HD feed from D* that was better than that same station OTA.

I asked an NBC affilliate broadcast engineer of my acquaintance about this issue once a few months back --I was told at their station the D* feed (they take a fiber feed like Comcast --Dish takes it off air) happens after the equipment that dynamically allocates bandwidth between the OTA channels. I suspect that is the common setup.

It had occurred to me that it was possible that might not be the case --that the fiber feeds might be going out before the bit-robbing equipment had done its evil deed. But nope.